How we won a startup challenge

Recently, I was involved in a startup challenge. We didn’t have too much time, but the task was clear, team was formed and we won! How?

A big multinational organized a regional startup challenge. The target was to make a solution for logistics business. We formed a team of 2 mentors & 2 students and after introduction to problem and to software platform, started to think about the solution.

A month later we won among the competition of different software firms from several european countries. The decision board said that our application offered unique innovative features and that “we run an extra mile” in this competition.

We build a prototype that included all major functionalities and features and then we created 3min video and presentation which showed all aspects of our solution.

Our strengh was in different approach, we tried to think different (lateral) and to offer something not yet known or offered in this field. Also, we looked at the problem from the customer’s side and did some investigation on the challenge from customer’s perspective which was crucial to understand the problem, let’s say that was just a bit of design thinking. Team was mixed out of senior software architect, innovation specialist and students of informatics. We believe that this brought the flow or new ideas coming from different angles. At the end, we was satisfied with our prototype and so was the customer and the challenge starter.